Slice of Life: Impressed, Impression, Imprinted
by The Black Sluggard
Summary: In which Kevin shares a bit of history—and is an irredeemable tease, but we all knew this—and Javier gains the upper-hand as it were. Life AU. Zombies. PWP. Slash, Ryan/Esposito.


The day had started off fairly normal, without any of the telltale signs that might have warned of difficulty later on. They had both woken up in a reasonably good mood, and Javier had managed to get more than four hours of sleep, which was rare enough that it almost called for a celebration.

Then they had gone to work, and both of their moods had been less great.

Not terrible, though, not by a long shot, even once their victim turned out to have ties to the _ILG_. And, when inquiries there had gone south, while it still boggled his mind, Kevin had to admit that even seeing Castle through the fallout of his first exposure hadn't quite turned into the disaster he had half expected. If Javier had been tense from the moment they'd entered the ER, Kevin felt he had ever right—it was a vivid reminder of the events which had so drastically and permanently altered his life. And the experience had clearly left Javier a bit rattled, but Kevin had thought he was handling it, and handling it well.

That was why it was so hard for Kevin to understand how it had gotten them _here_.

The silence, he thought, had crept up on them in the car on the way home, after the last aftershocks of amusement over Castle's behavior had worn off. As he drove, Kevin weighed that silence in his mind, letting himself feel it out in anticipation of which way it would go.

It was a preoccupied kind of quiet, and though Javier's eyes had been dark and wary with a perilous confusion, Kevin wasn't convinced the mood creeping up on his partner was necessarily a dangerous one. Javier's emotions could be difficult to interpret, and Kevin often found himself wishing his partner would talk more about them. Kevin knew how useless it would be to ask for that, however. Too often Javier had enough trouble understanding those feelings himself. There were times—times like _now_—when Kevin would look into his partner's eyes and couldn't be sure what he was seeing. The tense energy in his body almost read like anger, and while he wasn't sure that was wrong, the intensity in his eyes said something else altogether...

Kevin wasn't able to confirm it until they were home, and the door to their apartment had shut behind them. Javier's eyes, once Kevin managed to hold onto their contact, were shuttered, nervous, and uncertain. Javier lingered in the entryway a while, his back pressed against the door. He almost looked like he wanted to bolt, and Kevin thought he seemed vaguely afraid of whatever was going on inside his head.

"So, eleven," Javier finally managed, breaking the long, creeping silence. His words were halting, as if he were choosing them very carefully. "That's...impressive."

And there it was—a deep, charged harshness in Javier's tone that Kevin had heard before.

Now Kevin had a fairly good idea of what he was dealing with. Though, from the faint crease that was showing between his eyebrows, he thought Javier might not have been as sure as he was. And one of these days, Kevin was going to have to drum up the courage to make the obvious joke about how impossible it was for Javier's body to be so cold when he still had such heat in his eyes, because there was honestly no better way to describe it. And right now—

God, right now Javier's pupils were dilated so darkly his eyes looked almost black.

"I want to see—" Javier stopped himself, pausing with a frown as he struggled with whatever it was he was feeling. "I want you to show me where they bit you."

And Kevin, thankfully, managed not to laugh, because there was nothing joking in Javier's tone—raw and vulnerable and _hungry _in a way that Kevin found profanely arousing.

"Well, they weren't all bites, of course..." Kevin admitted, wetting his lips as he drew off his jacket. "Like, this one time I jumped into a dumpster after this guy's stash and fell on the needle..."

Javier let out a snort, some of his tension ebbing—which had really been Kevin's point in leading with that one.

"And this one left a scar," Kevin said, unfastened his shirtsleeve to show a faint mark on the flesh above his left wrist, "only it was a cat—"

And, okay, from Javier's expression, maybe that one went a bit too far toward slapstick for the mood he intended, but Kevin favored him with a disgruntled look.

"Don't laugh, Javi," Kevin warned as he unbuttoned his shirt. "Cats can carry it just like rats do. And neither show any symptoms, so you're really better safe than sorry..."

Though, as he took a step forward with his eyes focused on Kevin's fingers, Javier seemed to have forgotten it completely.

"This one was from catching a suspect in the mouth during a struggle," Kevin told him, holding up his right hand so that his partner could see the tiny flaw on his knuckle. In a self-aware move, Javier took his hand and briefly kissed the mark with a faint smile. "And this one...um..."

Kevin backed into the wall, Javier close in front of him, and his mind sort of drew a blank. Most of the other bites he'd sustained had been on his arms, so Kevin removed the shirt next. It was awkward from that position, but he managed. Many of his encounters really hadn't left a scar, but Kevin pointed out the locations to the best of his memory as he told the story behind it. As he did, Javier covered each with another light kiss, moving up from his hands and wrists to his elbow, and up to his shoulder. The attention had Kevin flushed, and each cool press of Javier's lips felt amazing against his heated skin.

"And...there's this one..."

And Kevin _really _hated pushing Javier away, but he needed the room to maneuver. Slowly, he stripped off his undershirt, leaving himself bare-chested as he turned.

"I don't know if it left a scar," Kevin said, lifting a hand to search the nape of his neck. He couldn't even feel it anymore, but it might still show—

And suddenly Javier's chest was against his back, his lips parting over the crest of Kevin's spine as his teeth gently teased the flesh. Pressed against the wall Kevin bit out a sharp swear—because it was really so easy it was hardly fair to either one of them at this point.

"And where did that one come from," Javier asked, his voice so rough that Kevin was simply impressed he even remembered what they had been talking about.

"Another brush with the _Gulas_," Kevin admitted unpleasantly, and behind him Javier let out an irritated growl.

The _Ira Lujuria Gula _had never exactly been amongst his partner's favorite people, even before his illness. Kevin knew he liked them even less now. The gang made a habit of using its members' post-vital status for intimidation. They traced their roots back to the period in post-vital rights when they had enjoyed status as legally living in the U.S. but not yet in Mexico. Back then, the dangerous practice of nursing loved ones through onset in secret had been widespread, because the only alternative for them was death. Certain entities in the Mexican drug trade had seen an opportunity, and expanded their operations to facilitate an underground railroad of sorts, smuggling post-vital refugees illegally into the U.S.

Over several decades, the organization had broken free of its origins, expanding across racial and regional borders to become an unfortunately permanent fixture in any city with a significant post-vital population. And they retained their ties to drug culture, ensuring steady numbers from the ranks of desperate and unfortunate users who found themselves looking at a new lease on life, like the man that had bitten Castle earlier that day—

Or the one who had infected Javier.

Javier caressed the mark with another scrape of his teeth before Kevin felt him trace another spot with his finger, right at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Kevin remembered the mark Javier had left there the first night they had slept together—a mark now all but faded.

"I want to do it again," Javier said slowly, with a harshness deeply at odds with the gentleness of the kiss he planted there. "I want one that will stay."

And then Javier stiffened abruptly, as if suddenly realizing what he was saying.

"God, Kev, I don't even—"

"I never exactly complained," Kevin interrupted quickly, not about to let this get out of hand.

"You never complain," Javier said uneasily, beginning to step away.

Kevin turned around quickly, sliding an arm around Javier's waist before he could manage any distance, drawing him close. With his shirt off it was just playing dirty, and even more so as he leaned in to breathe a warm whisper against his partner's neck.

"I want you to," Kevin said.

And, _Jesus_, it was a good thing his face wasn't anywhere that Javier could see it, because Kevin was blushing so hard you would think his partner had just proposed.

Javier managed to resist temptation for about as long as Kevin would have expected—which was hardly even a few seconds, really—before his hands fell to Kevin's hips and he leaned in to lap at Kevin's throat. Kevin lifted his own hands to Javier's face, pulling him in to claim his mouth decisively. As they made their way to the bed, Kevin didn't even bother with more than opening his partner's shirt for his hands, because there was already a momentum built up between them that would not be stayed—

And, as Kevin found himself pressed to the mattress, there was nothing else but surrender to the explorations of Javier's mouth.

Though the gentle, testing pressure of Javier's jaws on his flesh was not unfamiliar, they both knew this was very different. For all that the graze of Javier's teeth was an inescapable a part of his partner's passions, there had been very few times when he had actually broken Kevin's skin—and even then it had always been an _accident_rather than their aim. In prior experience, pain and blood had always been the result of Javier losing too much of his control, and beneath his arousal Kevin felt a faint thread of apprehension, because there was still an unanswered question...

Once the taste of blood was on his tongue, neither of them knew just how much control Javier would be able to _keep_.

They taught about post-vitals in the academy. There were special sections of the course in first-aid, special protocols for handling post-vital suspects and witnesses, and new officers were cautioned to aim center-mass—_regardless_—unless a head-shot was absolutely the only option. When he had put in for his shield, Kevin learned the signs to look for in an assault or murder that would indicate a regressive attack, and he knew from his own, not-insubstantial experience of tangling with undead needle-freaks just how dangerous a post-vital could be. He knew that in the throes of onset or regression they would go directly for the kill whenever possible—and in the middle of a fight even the most controlled might allow instinct to take them over—and that if their target put up a struggle, they often went after the face or the hands.

It was only after the fight had gone out of a victim that a regressive post-vital would turn their attention to what they were after...

Kevin's wounds were all on his arms or hands save for the one he had sustained when the perp snuck up on him—defensive wounds that were the result of fighting off an attack. And, as Javier nuzzled gently at the pale, unmarked flesh of his belly, Kevin briefly wondered if he was getting in over his head.

Yet as soon as it seemed his partner had found a spot he liked Javier drew away. Worry stabbed through him, but Kevin hardly had time to question it as his fly was swiftly undone, and Javier's hand slid under his boxers. Cool, rough fingers closed around his cock, and while the change in tactics was abrupt and unexpected, Kevin hardly felt he had cause to complain. His hips quickly fell in with the pace his partner set, strokes that were surprisingly slow and methodical, almost cruelly so.

As the tension built up inside him, Javier bent down to steal a consuming kiss before moving lower, nipping at the side of Kevin's throat, at a spot above his collar bone, at his chest. Finally Javier's lips returned to the place they had searched out earlier below Kevin's ribs, his mouth sealing over it with a tight suction. The spot was sensitive enough on its own—not quite enough to count as ticklish, though very nearly—and the intensity of Javier's attention there soon had Kevin squirming.

Kevin knew the exact moment that Javier was ready, but only because he felt his partner hesitate—and, honestly, at this point, if Javier didn't do _something_, Kevin thought he might die. It took an embarrassing amount of effort, but finally Kevin managed a word or two between breaths.

"_Please_..._Javi_..."

And that seemed to decide things. Javier's hand sped up suddenly only seconds before his teeth sank in, and when Kevin cried out, he honest to God didn't know if it was from the pain or his climax.

It took Kevin a long time to come back from that, and even longer to catch his breath. As he waited for things to even out, Kevin watched Javier's continued attentions. Though the wound ached and stung, there was something about the slow and impossibly careful pass of Javier's tongue over the damaged flesh that—

No, there was nothing that Kevin could even name the feeling. He simply didn't have the words.

Javier seemed to notice that he had come under scrutiny, because his motions slowed. His eyes lifted to meet Kevin's, and Kevin could see his own blood on his partner's lips. And Kevin was worried for a moment that he might lose him—not to instinct, but to the guilt and shame that he knew so frequently haunted Javier's thoughts. Then Javier lifted his hand to his mouth, sucking his fingers clean, his eyes sliding shut as a deep moan left his throat. And Kevin thought Javier could have lost himself in that same moment and he might still have died happy, because the sight of his partner enjoying the taste of his blood and his come together was the most obscenely beautiful thing that Kevin had ever seen.

They were both still a mess, but they each failed to care as Javier settled down beside him, burying his face against Kevin's neck. They dozed lightly for a while—or at least Kevin did—before either moved or spoke, and as usual it was Kevin who broke the silence.

"I'm almost hoping it won't scar," Kevin said, grinning lazily when he felt Javier frown. "I'd hate not to have a reason to do that again."

* * *

**Author's Note: **There's an internal order that is starting to suggest itself. Based on their dynamic, I think "Incubus" takes place some time before this. "You Bet Your Life" leads directly into this fic, and both "Sublimation" and "Substitution" take place two days later.


End file.
